Locker and cabinet.



1. 3.0C0I1Imm.` LOCKER AND CABINET.

APPLICATION FILED MAY I8 ISIS.

Patented Jan. I6, 1917.

2 SHEETS-SHEET l.

`LocKiiR AND CABINET. APPLICATION FILED MAY 18| |916.

9% @@@W Patentd Jan. 16, 19W,

2 SHEETS-SHEET 2.

JOI-IN B. O'CONNOR, OI? AURORA, ILLINOIS,l ASSIGNOR TO LYON METALLIC MANUFAC- TUBING- COIVIPANY, OF AURORA, ILLINOIS, A CORPORATION OF ILLINOIS.

LOCKER AND CABINET.

Speciication of Letters Patent.

Patented dan. In, Idil?.

Application filed May 1t, 1916. Serial No. 98,268.

To all whom it may concern.-

Be it known that I, JOHN B. OCoNNoR, a citizen of the United States, Aurora, in the county of Kane and State of Illinois, have invented a certain new and useful Improvement in Lockers and Cabinets, of which the following is a specification.

My invention relates to lockers and cabinets and is embodied in .a structure which, for convenience, may be referred to as a multiple locker.

It will be understood that in factories, warehouses, large offices, schools and many other institutions, it is a common custom to provide lockers, where the employees or attendants may keep their belongings. rIhese belongings are of widely different natures, and, as a general thing, it may be Said that the value of the articles is in inverse proportion to their bulk. In a factory, for example, in the winter time the employees have overcoats and heavy outer clothing; also umbrellas, raincoats and overshoes, which occupy a good deal of space, but which can be readily identified, and, hence, are not so likely to be stolen. @n the other hand, the employees are apt to also have paratively high value.

money, watches and jewelry, may not care to which they have upon their person during working hours, and which could be stolen without ready detection.

'Ihe cost of lockers and the space occupied by them frequently make it impracticable to provide for every employee lockers large enough to accommodate all of the articles which the employees may desire to lock up. I have conceived of means whereby this situation may be satisfactorily met.

li/Iy invention contemplates the construction of a group of small individual lockers, large enough to store watches, jewelry, money and other articles occupying comparatively small space and having a com.v Associated with this group of individual lockers, I provide a large lecker, which, for convenience, I shall term a community locker, and which may be employed for the storage of the bulky articles belonging to the tenants of the individual lockers. 'Ihe community locker residing at is provided with locking means, operable from the inside of each of the associated group of individual lockers. In consequence, the community locker is locked against everybody except the tenants of the associated group of individual lockers, and the door of the community locker can be unlocked only after the door of one of the individual lockers has been opened.

Although the design of the structure may be varied, the principle of the invention is clearly illustrated in the accompanying drawings, in which- Figure l is a perspective view of a complete structure embodying my invention. Fig. 2 is a perspective of the releasing bar, together with some of the associated parts. Fig. 3 is a plan section on the line 33, Fig. 1. Fig. 4 is a fragmentary perspective looking from the inside of the locker toward the front. F ig. 5 is a sectional elevation on the line 5-5, Fig. ll.

Similar numerals refer to similar parts throughout the several views.

The locker lis the community locker. Under ordinary circumstances it stands upright and is commodious enough to accommodate several oyercoats, together with several hats, caps, umbrellas or similar articles. It is provided with a door 2. Grouped adjacent to the community locker are individual lockers, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8 and 9. In the present design five of these individual lockers are arranged in a stack at the side of the community locker; the sixth locker is arranged above this stack, and the seventh is arranged above the community locker. 'Ihe number and arrangement of the individual lockers, relatively to the community locker, may be varied in some respects, although it is desirable to limit the number of tenants of the individual lockers to a comparatively small group.

Each of the individual lockers is provided with a door 10, and these doors are provided with individual locks 1l. rIhe locks 11 may bekey-operated locks or combination locks, but, in any event. the locking mechanism for each of the individual lockers requires a different key or combination from that of all of the others in the group. Hence, each tenant Will have access to his own individual locker, but not to any of the individual lockers of his neighbors.

By. preference, the door of the community locker swings away from the stack of individuall lockers, and the doors of the individual lockers swing away from the community locker. The door of the individual locker above the community locker preferably swings in the same direction as the door of the community locker. A partition 15 separates the individual lockers in the stack from the community locker and from the individual locker above the community locker. Slidingly mounted upon or adjacent to this central partition is a releasing bar, or lifting bar 16, shown separately in Fig. '2. In Athe present design, this is mounted on the side .adjacent to the stack of individual lockers. It slides vertically, being provided with ,vertical slots 17, which receive the headed pins 18, rigidly fastened to the partition, as shown in perspective near the upper part of Fig. 4. rlhis guiding mechanism for the releasing bar is repeated at suitable intervals throughout the length of the bar, as indicated, for example, by the slots 17 shown in Fig. lt is desirable that the releasing bar should be located just inside of the front doors.

Extending from bar 16 into each of the individual lockers is a pin or knob Q0, which forms a handle by which the bar may be lifted. Arms 21 project laterally from bar 16 and yslots are formed in the partition wall 15 to accommodate them. Said arms pass through into the community locker and extend under the noses of a corresponding number of latches 22. These latches are here shown to be in the form of downwardly extending hooks, which drop over and en gage the keepers 23, rigidly fastened to one of the stationary parts of the locker, as shown in detail in Figs. 3 and 5. The 'latches 22 are rigidly fastened to a vertically slidable bar 26 mounted on the inside of the door of the community locker. The result is that when the releasing bar with its arms 21 is lifted, it lifts the latches 2:2 and causes them to disengage the keepers 23 and permit the door of the community locker to be swung open. By preference the underside of the latches 22 is beveled so that they will ride up over the keepers automatically when the community locker door is swung shut and will then automatically drop down and engage said keepers.

Inl the design which I have selected for illustration, the door of the community locker has a flange 30 which strikes against the front of the angle iron 31 when the door is closed, this arrangement being clearly shown in Fig. 3. A reinforcing angle iron 33 is mounted on the inside of the door, the inner leg of this angle iron o'ering a surface matassa upon which the bar 26 mayy be slidingly mounted. The keeper 23 is fastened to the inside, of the angle iron 31, and, hence, has a substantial part of the structure for support. By reason of the presence of the liange '30, the locking mechanism of the community locker is well protected against the insertion of a jimmy or other prying tool.

1n operation, let it be assumed that all of the doors are shut and locked and that one of the tenants comes and desires to deposit his goods z-He first takes out his individual key and unlocks his individual locker. After throwing back the door he has free access to one of the handles 2.0 by which he is able to lift the releasing bar 10 and thereby lift` the latches 22 from the keepers 23. This unlocks the door of the community locker, whereupon the tenant is free to throw open the door of the community locker. He now has both lockers open and will proceed to deposit his possessions. He will put into the smaller locker his smaller and more valuable articles, including, perhaps, some smaller articles of clothing, such as -a hat or cap, muffler or wallet. Indeed, in many cases, he will be able to store all he wishes in the smaller locker, in which event he will be spared the trouble of operating the larger door. If, however, he has larger articles to store, such as an overcoat, street suit or umbrella, he will store them in the community locker. i'ifter the articles have been `de osited, the tenant swings the door shut. i hether the small door locks automatically or not will depend upon the type of lock employed, but the large door will lock automatically, due to the fact that the under edges of the latches 22 are beveled and automatically ride up over the keepers After they have moved inward a sutlicient distance, they will, by gravity, drop over the keepers and engage them; thus securely locking the door.

The effects of my invention are striking and result in part from psychologie causes; for e'ach member of the group of tenants realizes that should an article be taken from the community locker, the number of persons who can naturally be suspected is quite small, and, hence, the probability of detection correspondingly great. Furthermore, to protect himself, each member of the group feels a joint responsibility and for that reason would be apt to interfere if he observed anyone taking goods that did not belong to him; whereas he might otherwise be indifferent, and, through carelessness or disinclinat-ion, refuse to have anything to do with the matter. In such a small group it is probable that each member knows every other member, and toa certain extent what his belongings, such as hats or clothing, are.

large Elli lwdllmpdhd VFurthermore, to open the community locker it is necessary to open one of the individual lockers, and to have `to open two doors makes for delay and is apt to attract more attention than the opening of a single door would. i

Another advantage is that an installation of lockers of this klnd presents great flexibility in taking care 'of the fiuctuating demand for lockers. For example, in cases where the number of employees is running under normal, the number'of tenants having access to the community locker will be reduced, `so that possibly only two or three of the individual lockers will be employed. When the factory is running full, however, and it is necessary to employ all of the individual lockers, adequate accommodations are available.

It will be understood also that where lockers are assigned to each employee, the locker must be large enough to accommodate the maximum amount of goods which any one` of the employees would be apt to wish to deposit. But with my structure, advantage `can be taken of the law of averages, so that the total storage capacity of my structure may be considerably less than the aggregate ca acity of a group of single lockers designe to take care of an equal number of employees. l

Having thus described my invention, what ll claim as new and desire to secure by Letters Patent, is l 1. rlhe combination, with a community locker, of a plurality of individual lockers grouped adjacent to the community locker and all provided with doors. the individual lockers having individual locking means, operable from the outside, and the community locker having locking means operable from the inside of each of the individual lockers, whereby any tenant of the individual lockers may also have access to the community locker a ter opening his individual locker, but access to the community locker may be had only after one of the individual lockers has been opened.

2. lln a structure of the class described, the combination of an upright community locker, a stack of individual lockers arranged at the side of the community locker, said lockers all having doors,` locking means for the doors of the individual lockers, latching means. for holding the door of the community locker closed and 4releasing means for releasing said latching means, said releasing means being accessible solely from theinside of the individual lockers.

3. `lln a structure of the class described, the combination of a set of individual lockers, a community locker arranged adjacent to said individual lockers and separated" therefrom by a partitionnall of said lockers having doors, a releasing bar slidably mounted adjacent to said partition and having handles for its operation extending into the inside of'each of the individual lockers,

and locking mechanism for the community locker door, the last mentioned locking iechanism being releasable by said releasing 4. In a structure for safe storage, the combination of an upright community locker, a stack of individual lockers arranged at the side of the community locker and separated therefrom by a partition, all of said lockers having doors and locking means for holding them closed, the doors of the individual lockers having individual locks operable from the outside, and releasing means mounted upon said partition, back of the doors, for releasing the locking means of the community locker door, said releasing means being accessible from the inside of each of the individual lockers, whereby said releasing means is out` of reach when the doors of the individual lockers are closed, and lthe doors of the individual lockers swinging away from said partition when moving to open position.

5. In a multiple locker structure, the combination of a stack. of individual lockers, a community locker arranged vertically alongside of the stack of individual lockers, all of said lockers having doors, the doors of the individual lockers having individual locks operable from the outside, latches on the inside of the community' locker door, keepers on the inside of the community locker in position to be engaged by said latches, and means, a portion whereof extends into the inside of each of the individual lockers for detaching the latches from the keepers.

6. In a multiplev locker, the combination of an upright community locker, a stack of individual lockers adjacent to it, an upright partition separating the community locker from the stack of individual lockers, all of said lockers having doors, the doors ot the individual lockers havingindividual locksoperable from the outside,'latching hooks on the inside of the community locker door,

keepers on the inside-of the community locker in position to be engaged by said hooks, said hooks being vertically movable, and releasing means slidably mounted upon said partition and projecting into each of the individual lockers for lifting said hooks from the keepers, the doors of the individual lockers swinging away from the partition when moving to open position to thereby adord ready access tosaid releasing means.

7. lln a multiple locker, the combination of an upright community locker, a plurality of individual lockers grouped and above the community locker, an upright partition separating the community locker from the individual lockers and separating the individual lockers located above the top 12a at the side bar being adjacent to said partition and having handles extending into the inside of all of the individual lockers. 1o

In Witness whereof, I have hereunto subscribed my name.

JOHN B. OCONNOR. 

